101414 silent sentinels

101414
—
with an accidental elbow brush of intimacy
stranger leaving (if only temporary)
one desert for another
i see the shadows of my past appear
at last, like a mirage it spreads across
the landscape as thousands of silent sentinels
stand a vulnerable, judging watch, measuring loss
without eyes they see in a contorted agony
a mirror reflecting reality
where the steam punk civitas
of urbanizing chaos
trauma reigns supreme.

i live and love beneath the peaceful canopy
of a wakeful Joshua Tree dream.
do i…? Yes, i do. every day.

every time little boxes on the hillside
pass me by, we anthrogens desertify
supplanting farm, forest and prairie
until the inevitable landslide. Buried

every time i see someone willingly
participate in the empty production
of more toward the endless destruction
of enough, country bleeding mortals
mining diamonds in the rough.

every time this system serves and
protects corporate profit over people
place and communities.
every time i inhale air too acrid to breathe
inside this twisted normality
i believe.

draw the parallels between these things
like a convex prison industrial complex
that confines and murders all who refuse
to fall back into the lines
that connect the space between
control and crime
tough love and abuse.

i seek the liminality
within the phrase of place

every time i see Her face
in various forms
standing her sad watch
one of many silent sentinels
mourning the roadside slaughter of her mate
at tire height
by unthinking, unsensing, unrespecting
unexperiencing machines
containing beings
who readily sacrifice
our souls to drive and ride
and drink our devastation, i cry
toward the courage she demonstrates
in solitary defiance as hordes of the
Enemy in their loose alliance pass her by
without so much as the momentary remorseful twinge
of a second look in the midst
of the constant casual threat
of a monster’s ball rolling
drunken gasoline crack pipe binge. Broken

She resists with wings folded, no fists.
i see how she indignantly compares
the relentless flow of a self-destructing
economy to the forced-flat
two-dimensionality of a lovely
mutilated body splattered, becomes
our love lying shattered, more
with the desecrating roar of the passing teeth
mark on this floor in the mouth
of the concrete metal Beast
a Hell for each self
absorbed into its belly
never food enough
for its eternal Feast.

2014. it’s the year.
to live
to love and die
in the war i need to fight
without the chains of fear.
do i…? Yes, i do. every day
i think about suicide again
and decide instead
to persevere.